Campus Sexual Health Resources

Courtney discusses the different sexual health resources available on campus for WVU students. This includes the services at WELLWVU, Student Health Services, the Mountaineer Pharmacy, the LGBTQ+ Center, the Women’s Resource Center, and the Mon County Health Department. She also provides some reliable online resources such as: Advocates for Youth, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, Sex, Etc., and Scarletteen. 

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Wellbeing Wednesdays is a weekly podcast exploring what wellbeing means at West Virginia University. Listen to get to know more about the folks doing work on the ground at the university in addition to some light-hearted fun as we take a look at wellbeing in popular culture.

Hey everyone. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to Wellbeing Wednesdays. I am your host, Courtney Weaver. I am also the director here at Well WVU at West Virginia University. Uh, thanks for joining me today. Uh, one of these days, this semester I'm gonna get a guest. Uh, but until that time it's just gonna be me again.

But I thought that it was a great opportunity to review some of the different sexual health resources that are available to you as a WVU student. Um, just because yeah, our sexual health is, is really important. And I just want y'all to know where you need to go if, if you need it. All right. So let's get started.

So the first sexual health resource that we're gonna talk about is, you know, my office. Duh. Uh, I'm, , I'm most familiar with it. Um, so, uh, here at well WVU, we do a lot of different things, so we try and provide some inclusive sex education, and that is done, you know, in classrooms, uh, for your student organization.

Um, we'll do like smaller tabling events. You might see us, for example, in the lobby of your residence hall, doing like a condom caravan program or something like that. Uh, and then we also have put a lot of effort into the education that's available on our website, which is just well dot, wvu.edu. We have a whole section on sexual health, um, that we really sort of bulked up over the summer.

And, and we did that purposefully. You know, we, we cover a lot of sensitive issues, you know, here and well. Um, but sexual health, I think, you know, has a special place among that. And we wanna make sure that if students aren't comfortable, you know, asking someone a direct question, you know, hopefully they can find the answer on our website.

So, uh, we try to, we try to keep it updated, add more information, especially, um, if there's something that you think is missing, feel free to let us know, and then we'll look into adding it. It's very easy to do. Um, so there's that then, uh, we also have free, safer sex supplies for all students through our condom caravan ordering program.

So our. Order form is available on our website. Uh, we do pickups on Thursdays and Fridays of every week, so long as the university's not on holiday. Um, and, uh, it's a totally, uh, discreet system, I would say, not anonymous. Cuz we do ask for your name and your email just so that we can send reminders or anything if we need to.

But, um, what we do is you place your order. We package it up for you, put it in a discrete paper bag, write your name on it and just leave it in the hallway. You come and grab it on Thursday or Friday, and then that's all you need to do. And you can always order more if you need more. And then if you're a resident assistant, you can actually order in larger quantities, uh, just so that we can.

um, provide you with materials that you might need for your residents. Now, if you don't want to order yourself, um, you can also ask if you live in the residence halls, you can ask your RA to see if they have any supplies, um, that you could have. So, and if they don't have it, then you can always recommend that they order from our program.

So I was really excited about our condom caravan. It's seen a really large uptick in. This semester. Um, so we're excited to see that students are familiar with it and are using it to get the supplies that they need. And then another unique resource that we have here and well is, you know, we have folks who are trained insects, education like myself, um, who are available to, you know, answer any questions that you might have, or sit down and, and chat with you about, you know, some of the issues that you're seeing, or just want some.

You know, some assistance on, and even if that is pointing you to a different resource on campus, you know, we're happy to do that. Um, so my, I keep telling folks, you know, my whole job is, is to make sure that, uh, you all have the help that you need. Um, so you make sure that you're taking advantage of that.

If you have any questions, Our second on campus resource would be student health services. Now student health is technically a part of WVU medicine. Um, but they're located on the Evansdale campus. We're actually located in the same building. Um, So it's actually been renamed. It's no longer the health education building.

It's actually called the student health building. Um, but student health services provides a lot of sort of reproductive care. So like gynecological services, including, you know, pap smears and things like that. They also are available to do hormonal contraceptive sort of, uh, consultations, but also prescriptions.

So if you're interested in something like, uh, birth control pill or the ring or the shot or an I U D or the implant, they have, you know, obviously fully trained medical professionals there to. Um, and are able to administer some of those right there in the clinic. Um, also in the clinic, they do free, safer sex supplies.

So it's not in the lobby of the clinic it's in, um, where the clinical spaces are. Um, but those supplies are available to you for free. And then another thing student health services does, they do provide STI testing and treatment. So a third resource on campus would be the Mountaineer pharmacy. So the Mountaineer pharmacy is actually located also in the student health building.

It's a party over here I'm telling you. Um, but you can enter both from the outside and through the lobby of student health services, but the pharmacy runs like a traditional pharmacy wood. So a variety of prescriptions can be, you know, filled at the location. Um, and then they also offer a lot of over the counter.

Products that are often at a lower price. So one of the things that they do offer over the counter is emergency contraception. So the brand that they have is something called my choice and it's fairly inexpensive. So it's only about $15 per dose. Now. That's a lot cheaper than if you were to go get, you know, a different brand at a different drug store that could cost up to 45 to $50.

But my choice is a brand that was designed to be more inexpensive. So 15 bucks, it's not too bad. Um, the one caveat and, and this is really N. The case for a lot of over the counter emergency contraceptions, it's not as effective for folks who are over a certain weight. So the weight is 164 pounds. However, there are other emergency contraception options available for folks who are over that weight.

Uh, but those are available by prescription. But again, since the mountain new pharmacy is on campus, student health services on is on campus. Um, you could still make that happen pretty easily. A fourth sexual health resource is actually our LGBTQ center. Um, so the LGBTQ center actually does really great workshops, um, on inclusive sex education.

And as part of those workshops, they provide free, safer sex supplies. Um, and then also importantly, they provide community for a lot of LGBTQ. LGBTQ students and allies. Sorry, I stumbled there. Um, and so they'll do events. Like I know they hosted a bowling night recently. They've done like Gabe nights.

They'll do like brunches. It's really great. Um, and the LGBTQ center, if you are not familiar with its location, it's on the downtown campus right near Dallasman and nikker. which I'm not gonna lie. I just went to stone liquor hall for the first time, um, a couple weeks ago. Um, so it is kind of up a hill, uh, but it's a really not calm, uh, really great space, uh, for students if they need it.

Uh, the fifth resource that we'll talk about is actually the WVU women's resource center of the WRC. Um, so. One of the things that they just really do great with, um, especially on their website is linking people to different resources that are available. Um, so for example, you know, on their website, they have like healthcare resources and under that it's like disability services, mental health, physical health, reproductive health.

Hospitals and chiropractic care, um, insurance and reproductive care information. Um, they have safety resources. They have resources for COVID 19. They have resources on like career and pregnant or expecting resources, LGBTQ communities, student orgs, veterans women's rights groups, work, life policies, um, information about, you know, changing your last name in West Virginia and even like basic needs resources.

So it's really cool. So there are really good. Um, place to go. If you don't know where to go, it's a good place. It's a good place to start. Um, and then one of the other services that they provide is they do free, uh, menstrual hygiene products and they actually do a free period cup campaign, um, at least once per year, uh, keep your eye for that.

And they give out free, uh, menstrual cups, which is pretty cool. Then they also offer free, safe for sex supplies and they offer free pregnancy tests as part of their service. And so, uh, another resource that is not on campus, but it is here in Morgantown and is something that students should be aware of is the Mongolia county health department or the Mon health department.

Um, so it's actually near the Evansdale campus and they provide a lot of the same services. That's. Student health would through their, uh, healthcare clinic. So they provide STI testing and treatment services, but they also provide reproductive health services, um, and gynecological care. And they often do this, um, with no fee or on a sliding scale, which is really great cuz sometimes, um, you know, I talk to a lot of students and over the decade that I've been doing this kind of work, uh, and sometimes students are nervous if they go.

To somewhere, and they're worried that something's gonna show up on an insurance form or something like that. And so the Mon county health department is a really good place to go if, if that's what you're concerned about. And again, it's that little to no cost to you. So, I mean, I love free things, so you can't really go wrong with that.

And, and finally, Again, not an on campus resource, but I think something that's really important to, to learn, to become a sexually healthy adult is to learn how to be a critical consumer of sex education that you might find online. Uh, for example, you know, don't just Google the word sex and expect the best information to appear if you've ever done that before you, you get something, I mean, close to like a billion.

Um, and so you wanna stick with resources that, you know, that are like.gov or.edu sites, but there are also a lot of great nonprofit organizations, um, that provide a lot of online sex education for students to, for, for you to explore. Um, so organizations like advocates for youth, um, is a great one. Uh, they not only.

Sex education for, you know, young adults, but also for like parents and stuff like that. Um, the sexuality information and education council of the United States is another good one. Um, also known as siku they actually publish the comprehensive guidelines for sex education, which is always cool to review.

There's another site called sex cetera, which is actually run out of Rutgers university in New Jersey. Um, but it's a site that is sex ed, four teens by teen. Uh, and so it's run by a lot of young peer educators who are volunteers obviously supervised, um, by professional, uh, staff. But, um, it's got a lot of great articles, a lot of advice, columns, things like that.

And then there's also a site called Scarlet teen, which is again about providing inclusive sex education. For young adults and ER, or I would say teenagers and emerging adults, uh, which is such a fun term. Um, but all those are great are great sites too. So I'll put all of these in the description for this podcast so that you can access them.

But a lot of them are already linked to on well WVU site under our external resource. All right. Well that about does it for me today, folks. Um, if you have any questions, of course, feel free to reach out, but appreciate your time and attention, and we will catch you next time on Wellbeing Wednesdays.